


the royal guest you entertain is not of common birth

by angevin2



Category: Richard II - Shakespeare
Genre: Christmas, Depressing Christmas Fic, Gen, Gratuitous Medieval Literature, Imprisonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:19:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2805854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angevin2/pseuds/angevin2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas, Pomfret Castle, 1399.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the royal guest you entertain is not of common birth

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Prompt Me Shakespeare Shakespeare Advent Event on tumblr. Also written with the 2013 RSC production starring David Tennant in mind.

Christmas Day falls upon Pomfret Castle in a blinding snowstorm, the kind where the flakes beat an icy tattoo against the casement and the drifts pile up against the battlements and the cold is so bitter that it creeps into the floors and the walls and your bones and the flames in the fireplace and hearth seem to give off too little light and even less heat.

 _Lord, these weathers are cold,_ John Barwyk thinks as he pulls his old woolen cloak about him, _and I am ill-happed!_ He'd seen the play of the shepherds as a boy in Wakefield and every Christmas since then he remembers it, the sheep in the cradle and cherries for the Christ-child and the booming voice of the ginger-haired man who began the play, chafing his hands and lamenting the bitter weather and the bitterer greed of the gentlefolk. 

This year his only flock is a poor wretch who was once King of England, sent to the north to repent of his own bitter greed -- or, more likely, simply to waste away. King Richard is a young man still, but the northern winter is more than many men can handle, and the fare is slender enough even for his guards. John wonders, when he goes to take the former king his thin pottage, if he knows what day it is, buried in the dungeons of a castle buried in snow, but then he remembers the old priest from the town who comes sometimes to minister to King Richard. 

The king -- the former king -- is curled up in a ball when John enters his cell, his heavy chains tangled about his waist. He is so still, and the room so cold, that for a moment John wonders if he will ever stir again, but when he approaches for a closer look, he can just barely perceive the king's breath misting the air and gently stirring the lank auburn strands of hair that hang over his face.

"My lord?" he says. He and King Richard never speak to each other: there's nothing to say, after all, and so he merely unfastens the chains and tastes the king's food before handing him the small bowl. But now he crouches down, setting the bowl on the cold ground and peering into the king's face. 

" _Merry it is while summer lasts, with birds' sweet song,_ " the king mumbles tunelessly. John is used to this; King Richard doesn't speak to him, but he does sometimes talk to himself. He hasn't been known to sing, though. Perhaps his mind is beginning to go soft. 

" _But now neareth winter's blast and weather strong._  
 _Hey, but this night is long,_  
 _And I with well mickle wrong_  
 _Sorrow and mourn and fast._ "

John doesn't suppose he can blame him. It would be hard not to go mad, after all, if you'd been king and now you were -- whatever he was now. He wonders, for the first time, if it was hard for God to become a man, even before they crucified Him. 

"My lord, will it please you to eat?" he says, and King Richard finally stirs as though he's coming out of a long sleep, although surely he can't have slept much in this cold. John unchains his wrists, trying as usual not to look too hard at the red marks the shackles have worn into them. He tastes the bland, gritty pottage before handing the bowl to the king. Their fingers brush for a moment -- King Richard's are icy and stiff with cold. 

That night John leaves the cell without fastening his chains.

**Author's Note:**

> I borrowed the name John Barwyk for Richard's prison-keeper from [skazka](http://archiveofourown.org/users/skazka/pseuds/skazka) (specifically [this fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2184687), with which this one has a few things in common; all I can say for myself is that life at Pomfret is pretty repetitive).
> 
> The play John thinks of at the beginning is the Wakefield Second Shepherds' Play, which you can read [here](http://people.ucalgary.ca/~scriptor/towneley/plays/second.html) (I recommend it highly, as it is a lovely little play). Wakefield is about ten miles from Pontefract. The reference to the play is pretty anachronistic, since its probable date of composition is closer to 1500 than to 1400 and thus there's no way someone alive in 1399 could have seen it as a child; I have, however, adopted my source material's attitude toward anachronism. 
> 
> _Miri it is when sumer ilast_ is a Middle English lyric. I've put it into modern by way of Translation Convention. You can hear it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJr8uZPNm4Y).


End file.
